Queen Rose of the Wathaurung people in her possumskin cloak, 1876.

Old Ballarat as it was in the summer of 1853–54: the golden vision that Eugene von Guérard painted in 1884.

One of von Guérard’s more realistic sketches of Ballarat, from 1854.

Alarming Prospect: all the single ladies. John Leech, 1854.

Head down, bum up on the road to Ballarat. John Alexander Gilfillan, 1853.

Great expectations: the lucky digger returns. S. T. Gill, 1852–3.

Grass widows: the girls the diggers left behind and what they had to do (detail). William Strutt, 1851.